NBC Olympics and Yahoo will "partner to promote video highlights and live streamed video of the Sochi Games, ending years of competition and public sniping over what outlet drove the most traffic during an Olympic Games," according to Mickle & Fisher of SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. The agreement "extends the content, promotional and distribution partnership that NBC and Yahoo signed a year ago and announced to great fanfare" on "SNF." But that partnership "notably excluded the Olympics, in part because NBC and Yahoo historically competed for traffic during the Games." NBCOlympics.com and Yahoo under the new deal will "remain independent and continue to sell their own inventory, but link to each other’s stories and videos in order to boost each other’s traffic during the Sochi Games." Yahoo Sports and NBC Sports staff will "contribute to Olympic news and digital segments that air on NBCOlympics.com, and NBC Olympics will integrate Yahoo Search, Flickr and Tumblr into its website during the Games." For NBC, the deal is "designed to boost video views during the Olympics, so that it can meet its guarantees to advertisers who bought digital inventory during the Sochi Games." For Yahoo, the partnership "bolsters its existing Olympics coverage by allowing it to link directly to highlights and live video on NBCOlympics.com, a move expected to help Yahoo attract more visitors." The previous NBC Sports-Yahoo partnership outside of the Olympics has "generated an extensive amount of content integration," and similar content integration "is expected to happen during the Olympics." Yahoo will "embed some of its staff in Stamford, Conn., where NBC’s digital team is based, to work directly" on integration (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 12/16 issue).
